


Bruises

by CannibaLilly



Series: Goretober 2017 [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Bruises, Gen, late night bath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 16:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12236646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CannibaLilly/pseuds/CannibaLilly
Summary: Day one of my Goretober challenge!Donna has a bruise and a visitor.





	Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> Goretober Rating: (1/10). Starting things lightly. Just warming up. No sex, no lasting trauma of any kind and not even adult language. It's basically goretober fluff.

Donna lowered her black and blue leg into the hot water. The foam parted for it and she groaned. God, this hurt, but not half as much as bruising it had hurt.  
   
Donna used to scoff at girls in horror movies, falling over and being unable to get away, just because they had bruised their ankle a teeny-tiny bit.  
   
Admittedly, she had not fallen over. A metal grille beneath her feet had given way and her leg hat gotten to know the fan underneath. She had screamed and scrambled over the ground rather inelegantly. The pain had been intense and she had needed a full minute to convince herself to open her eyes.  
   
Once she had managed to complete this heroic task, she had learned that her foot had not been severed by the fan. Still, the moment she put any kind of pressure on it the pain was excruciating. There was no way she could stand up like that. Not to mention walking.  
   
In the end she had dragged herself down the corridor of the malfunctioning space station, yelling for the Doctor to move his bony arse to help her. Not that he had been around. He had been out for a space-walk to fix some leaking oxygen leak or whatnot. By the time he had saved their lives, Donna had dragged herself into the TARDIS. They had gone to bed, Donna still cross with her Spaceman.  
   
Donna checked the clock. It was half past three. Someone had once told her that most people died at three in the morning. It was one of those useless statistical facts, but for some reason she had never managed to forget about it and three a.m. had never felt quite the same to her.  
   
She shifted in the bathtub and rubbed her ankle. It groaned and pulsed and she tried to adjust it, so it rested more comfortably. The pulsing was why she was still up at this time of the night, even though time was a vague concept at best in the TARDIS. The Doctor had put some sort of ointment on her leg and bandaged it and it had helped. For a while. Then the agony had gotten worse and woken Donna up. Unable to get really far with her leg, she had just managed to hop into her bathroom and get into the tub.  
   
The hot water had been a good idea for her sore limb and the soap that produced all that foam and smelled of cinnamon had been an even better idea for her nerves. She lay back and let herself sink into the water until only her head poked out. She tried to think of the cinnamon and the pain that would soon go away and not so much the fact that she had almost lost a leg today. Or the need to leave this tub eventually.  
   
How the hell was she supposed to climb out of here, she was hardly able to sit up?  
   
To her right the door creaked and Donna's eyes snapped open. Three a.m. is already over, she thought as if this could repel some sort of killer to enter her bathroom. Then she remembered that this was the TARDIS and no killer could managed to come in.  
   
Also, no killer would stop half-way and remember that humans usually knocked before entering a room.  
   
Donna grimaced. „What do you want, Spaceman?“ she said, ignoring that the door was already half-way open.  
   
„I, err, wanted to check on you, but you weren't in bed.“  
   
„Well, now you've found me. Go to sleep.“  
   
Silence. Then, „are you okay in there?“  
   
„Yes, I am perfectly fine. Just taking a bath in the middle of the night, because that's when the water is _just right_ ,“ she replied, emphasising the last two words with her hands even though the Doctor couldn't see it.  
   
More silence followed. Then the Doctor asked, hesitant, „can I come in?“  
   
Donna sighed. The late-night disturbance had scared her too much to sent the Doctor away now. She knew she would just expect someone to come knocking again. Also, she would have to go back to bed eventually, so the Doctor could come in handy.  
   
„Wait a sec.“ She pushed herself into a sitting position and pulled the shower curtain close the best she could. „Yeah, all right. Come in.“  
   
She saw the shadows behind the curtain moving as the Doctor entered. „Why aren't you in bed?“ she asked him.  
   
„I could ask you the same.“  
   
„But I asked first. What are you doing up, Spaceman?“ Donna had been with the Doctor for too long to fall for his questions that were just meant to distract. She knew why she was up, her ankle was killing her, but why wasn't the Doctor in bed? And if he didn't need to sleep, he didn't every night apparently, then why wasn't he tinkering on something as usual?  
   
The lanky shadow moved and the Doctor took a seat next to the tub. They fell silent for a while. Donna just let it pass. That was something else she had learned. If one wanted to talk to the Doctor, being able to endure moments of silence was crucial. Usually he was the first to give in and dispel the silence. Usually with something close to the truth.  
   
Donna patted her ankle gently with a sponge and watched the foam dripping off her swollen leg and then the Doctor sighed and Donna knew he was ready.  
   
„Remember Anthony?“  
   
Donna put the sponge away. „That boy who died?“ Anthony had been merely eighteen and he had been so excited to be in space. More excited than Donna maybe. It had been his first month on the space station and he had looked so shocked as he'd been sucked out into the vacuum. The Doctor had tried to reach for Anthony, but he had been just the fraction of a moment too late. Quicker than anyone else, but still not in time to save the boy's life.  
   
„I can't stop thinking, I've seen him before. That name sounded familiar from the start and now I was thinking... couple of decades ago, I've been to that quadrant before. Maybe I've met Anthony when he was younger... There was an Anthony I think... No older than five.“  
   
„There are many boys who are called Anthony,“ Donna replied gently and leaned back against the tub. „And... even if it has been him, there's nothing you could have done.“  
   
„Yeah...,“ the Doctor said slowly. „It wouldn't have changed anything.“  
   
Silence fell around them again, but it was easier to bear this time, and after a while Donna asked the Doctor to help her back into bed. She knew she wouldn't get much sleep tonight, not with her ankle as it was, but maybe she could get the Doctor to stay with her and spent the sleepless night together. After all, it looked as if Donna wasn't the only one who had returned from their trip with a nasty bruise.


End file.
